The Bookazine Solution

By Robert Christgau

Some months ago I wrote a post mourning the demise of the alt-country
magazine No Depression. Turns out there's a happy ending, assuming
everything pans out. Like so many noble journalistic enterprises, No
Depression has turned to the nonprofit/educational world for
sustenance. The University of Texas, which published an anthology of No
Depression pieces in 2005, will put out a book-format journal called No Depression #76.

For sure this is good news, amped up by the notice sent out by
publicist Traci Thomas, which reports that the bookazine is
only half the strategy. In late September, No Depression will relaunch
online, publishing blogs, features, news, and reviews. Thomas
concludes: "While the bookazine breaks ground in the publishing world,
it is ultimately its combination with the website that moves No Depression
forward into the exciting, new media future." As with all publishing
ventures, whether the website will prove self-sustaining, and what
economic use it will be to its contributors, remains to be seen. But
it's great that Peter Blackstock and Grant Alden have taken their baby
this far.

Still, I have a couple of stray reservations--not reservations,
really, more like wistful what-does -it-all-mean thoughts. The first is
that a long time ago I decided for journalism and against academia in
my own career because I believed journalism with its profit motives was more conducive to
adventurous thinking and good writing. I've done a fair amount of
college teaching, in music history as well as writing, and am still
willing to generalize that I get more intellectual stimulation from my
journalistic friends than from the people I meet in academia--though if
I spend all my time in academia I'd presumably get to be more
selective. Now journalism as I engaged it turns to the public tit. Something's off there.

The second is that one reason Texas is ready to hook up with
No Depression is that No Depression specializes in Americana--so-called
roots stuff. The past, especially the regional past, always has an
academic market. Were a punk magazine to go down (is Maximum Rock 'n'
Roll still around?), hooking up would probably be a lot tougher. In this
connection I am pleased to report that No Depression #76, in addition
to its big cover piece on new string bands and other predictably worthy
fare, will have a feature on Canadian singer-songwriter Basia Bulat,
who pigeonholes less readily although I don't think she's all that,
and--bingo--the now veteran Oklahoma teenpop group Hanson. MMMBop. But also, Hanson fans, Weird.

3 Comments

UT Press should be commended for continuing No Depression in print, even at a bi-annual schedule. Though Maximum R&R may not show up at University of California Press if it were to end up in tough straits, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it could find a home at a university press *somewhere*. (it may have to move to a non-rub ink though...it is still around and there's a special issue out on Raymond Pettibon I think.)

Univ. Presses do take chances on rock and roll now and then. I think Frank Kogan's last book came out from Univ of Georgia Press.

A leading punk magazine, Punk Planet, did go down last year, and perhaps you are correct in your hunch, as I'm pretty certain Punk Planet has not found any university-press types of takers to revive them in print. They have continued as a website, though to what extent it has been financially viable for them, I don't know. Nor do I know yet exactly how financially viable it will be for us! But we'll give it a try.

And meantime, for what it's worth, I must say that I've found the UT Press folks to be actually quite UNlike the stereotypical stuffiness of academia. This is the second project we've done with them (they did our "Best Of" anthology in 2005), and both times they've been quite encouraging of our creative impulses.

But we will miss the bimonthly days, for sure. As one of my heroes, Mickey Newbury, once sang, "The future's not what it used to be....."

About

the National Arts Journalism Program, an association of some 500 journalists in the United States. Our group blog is a place for arts and cultural journalists to share ideas and information, to celebrate what we do, and to make the case for its continuing value. ARTicles is edited by Laura Collins-Hughes. To contact her, click here.

NAJP NAJP is America's largest organization dedicated to the advancement of arts and cultural journalism. The NAJP has produced research, publications and discussions and works to bring together journalists, artists, news executives, cultural organization administrators, funders and others concerned with arts and culture in America today.
more